LONDON: Many have followed NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft as it made its approach of Pluto earlier this summer. The space probe has transmitted a number of revealing photos and data about the mysterious dwarf planet, and they seem to keep rolling in every day. According to a report from the Economic Times, the craft’s most recent discovery shows the presence of flowing ice and an extended atmospheric haze encasing the distant planet.
According to John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, researchers are still in awe of the details revealed about Pluto since New Horizons made its closest approach two weeks ago. The unique surface chemistry, flowing ice, mountain ranges, and alien atmosphere have already given scientists countless hours of new work.
Seven hours after its closest approach, New Horizons glanced back towards Pluto to snap a picture with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI). It captured the sunlight shining through the tiny planet’s atmosphere, revealing a haze that rested as high as 130 km above the surface.
A basic read on the haze showed that it had two separate layers, one at an altitude of about 80 km over the surface, and the other at 50 km above the surface.
According to New Horizon’s co-investigator from George Mason University, Michael Summers, “The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto’s surface its reddish hue.”
The pictures transmitted by the craft also show evidence of bizarre ice flows on the planet’s surface, which suggest recent geologic activity. The details show a plane as big as Texas with a large sheet of ice that may still be flowing in a manner not unlike the glaciers on Earth.
The world eagerly awaits more data and photos from New Horizons, imagining what other secrets the distant planet may hold.
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